That sound fantastic, thank you very much. Will let you know how things progress with it, obviously I need to get aproval from the course supervisor but I can see no reason why I could not go ahead with something along these lines.

Would be quite interested in looking at the life of Bernard Bosanquet I am sure their must be quite a bit of stuff written on him but not sure if he wrote much himself (think I read somewhere that he wrote a book). Ideally I would want the career of someone lke him with that of a professional of similar ability (obviously Bosanquets' career is very unusual) looking at the stark differences of their economic conditions but also their attitudes towards the game.

You may be backing the wrong horse there - there isn't really very much on Bosanquet - of that sort of ilk you might find Kortright easier to do although there is no contemporary autobiography (but there is a decent biography written in the early 1980's) - of the professionals there's only Bobby Abel who I can think of off hand who had a contemporary biography published and that really is scarce

There is a book on the history of the professional cricketer by Ric Sissons which is described as "scholarly" so ideal source material for an academic exercise

Will try and have a look at that then, will have a good think about it over the next couple of weeks, the book of interviews sounds like it might be an excellent source. Will message you if I have any more ideas if that is ok?

thanks, will look to peruse this particular topic but if their is not enough primary material then I can always shift my time period forward somewhat, would expect there would be more on the period between the wars?

excellent, never though cricketweb would actually help me pass my degree rather than hinder it but looks like is going to. The whole point of this module that it you have to improve your methods of historical research so it is probably better to do a period where a little bit less material is available. I also have acess to most libraries in the univeristy of london as as well as the British Library which I believe has loads of cricket writing in it.

I have just started an MA in History and we need to write an essay on anything we like which includes some kind of method of historical research, thought I would take the oportunity to write something about cricket, my first idea was to compare the lives, careers and attitudes of gentlemen and professionals in the so called golden age of English, cricket. ideally through the lives of two players. Would be a huge help if anyone (probably SJS or archie mac) would be able to recomend books in general about the Golden age and more importantly any diaries or autobiographies written by players during this era?

I have already bought The Golden Age of Cricket, 1890-1914 by David Frith and Great Characters from Cricket's Golden Age by Jeremy Malies and am awaiting their delivery but any recomendations would be fantastic.

Sorry mate, I only just noticed this

Fred has given you some good advice. There is a book called The Players, it will be a great help and the Bib. would have all the titles you would need